I’m dying to book my next trip(s). San Francisco and Costa Rica?

I’d prefer to be sitting on the patio of an ice cream parlour, underneath the summer sun.

I stopped by Michael’s Arts & Crafts to restock on pink twine and ended up rummaging through a bin of discounted rubber stamps. Like most things on sale these days, they weren’t anything spectacular, but like most things in life, if you work a little harder (in this case, dig a little deeper into those bins), you do end up with a few gems like these that only the patient and persevering customer can find ;)! A regular priced rubber stamp at Michael’s is between $6-$12. These beautiful stamps were only $1.50 each. What a bargain. :) I definitely got a little bit stamp-happy on the two packages I sent out today – one to California and one to Maryland.

The Heart stamp is to show my LOVE.
The Thank You stamp is to show my APPRECIATION.
The Handmade stamp is to show my humble CREATION.
The Canada stamp is to show that I am proudly CANADIAN.
The Just For You stamp is to show that YOU are SPECIAL.

I created a new email address today: charleneprecious@gmail.com. Email me!

Nike’s JUST DO IT.

“I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” –Michael Jordan

MJ said it best. I really can never ever feel good about myself if I haven’t at least TRIED. Trying and taking the shot is mandatory and is really the bare minimum to gaining anything potentially great out of life.

This one’s not in harmony with my regular palette but I throw in a random HDR photo here and there because I do love how they look. They’re also not nearly as girly so perhaps I can attract a male audience every now and then. This was shot at a dodgy alleyway in Madrid.

I think I’m coming down with something. :( I haven’t been sick in 365 days (all of 2011), I think my body just needs to get sick at this point. I’m going to fight it off with a good night’s sleep. I like to think that I have a pretty strong immune system. Sleep tight, my dear friends.

A friend showed me a good song today. The discovery of good songs is like injecting a needle of joy into my veins. I’m so hungry for good music all the time that I have an army of people recommending religiously – it’s fantastic, really. If you have good musical gems, pretty please share. I want to get into your musical world. :) The newly discovered song is Somebody That I Used To Know by Gotye. Quite the awesome song except that it’s going to start playing on the radio and lose all of its awesome pretty quickly. I hate (most) songs on the radio. I am wooed by music that the radio doesn’t play, that the regular crowd doesn’t listen to, that not a lot of people know about. No particular genre or anything – good music is good music. Anyway, you heard GOTYE here first. Enjoy it before the radio kills it.

Self portrait. I look young. I am young.

where there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm, quiet interchange of sentiments.”
I love a good conversation with good company over a cup of tea or coffee.

Eight days a week. Meet my gentleman. I’m training him in front of the camera. Breaking the ice with these rookie shots. :)

I received my first order from NORWAY today – I’m now at 231 sales. And this is with virtually no promotional effort apart from this blog and a little bit of Facebook and Twitter – it’s all I have time for! I do wish I had more time for promotional activities because this has great potential for explosion. A friend of mine suggested that I make a big “P” (for Precious) out of flags from countries who’ve bought my art. What a brilliant idea. I’m on it!

I’m back from my weekend getaway – it was a beautiful time. Forgive me for missing my Friday and Saturday posts – I didn’t even bring my laptop with me. I just wanted to focus on face time without distractions.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again – if you make your weekends eventful, it makes it a lot easier to go back to another work week, so make something out of your weekends!

Also, I saw The Decades Show this weekend for an evening entertainment and they were absolutely phenomenal. I love, love, LOVE talented people. I just want to hug them and tell them how awesome they are.

On another note, a little bit of Mark Twain brilliance:
“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

Surround yourself with genuine well-wishers and people who bring you UP to higher places because there is just no room for the alternative!

Hope you all had a weekend as fabulous as mine. xo